Both In the Mouth of Madness (1995), directed by John Carpenter and The Cabin in the Woods (2012), by Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon, display an overt awareness of the fact that they are horror films. Newer horror films, in order to be successful, must be aware of the films that have come before them. Both Mouth of Madness and Cabin fit Kimberly Jackson’s definition of metahorror: “their self-reflexivity is part of their construction, […] they expose the limits of the narrative structure in which they operate; […] they are at once definers of the genre and moments or examples of it” (Jackson 11). Metahorror is a reaction to the oversaturation of the genre, often commenting not just on conventions but also on the role of technology in the horror film. With this focus on self-reflexivity, it appears that horror has moved away from what has made horror so appealing in the past: jump scares, suspense, gore, and the reinforcement of normality—all of which allow for a cathartic experience. Postmodern horror films can still frighten, however. Both films include gruesome violence, which Isabel Pinedo argues is in line with postmodernism’s intent to imagine “the fragility of the body by transgressing its boundaries and revealing it inside out” (Pinedo 21). So, though an ironic distance is created between the events on screen and the viewer, it gives the viewer space to reflect on deeper fears, rather than reestablishing the norm.
In terms of theory, postmodernism is “self-conscious, self-contradictory, self-undermining,” and committed to “doubleness, or duplicity” (Hutcheon 1). Postmodernism is borne out of our desire to decentralize previously wholeheartedly accepted acts of life and ways of thinking (though in attempting to decentralize these, may accidentally be reinforcing them). Postmodernism underlines “in its ironic way the realization that all cultural forms of representation—literary, visual, aural—in high art or the mass media are ideologically grounded, that they cannot avoid involvement with social and political relations and apparatuses” (Hutcheon 3). Underlying postmodernism is the assumption that “we can only know the world through ‘a network of socially established meaning systems, the discourses of our culture,’” which rings especially true when looking at the popularity of films such as Scary Movie or Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, which rely on an established knowledge of the horror genre to have meaning (Hutcheon 7). Postmodernism calls into question all that which people had taken for granted, from social order to the existence of reality outside of representation.
Even the name of John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness is self-reflexive and reflects a postmodern playfulness and self-awareness as John Carpenter is a prominent horror filmmaker in his own right (Pilipp 56). As the credits roll before the film starts, book jackets for the novel In the Mouth of Madness are being printed off in the background.
The film acknowledges the construction of the novel which it centers on, hinting that viewers might do the same for the film they are watching. The story of the film follows a cynical detective (a very film-noir character, making scenes shot at night, with chiaroscuro lighting and an emphasis on water in the streets, much more purposeful) as he tries to find a horror book author, Sutter Cane, similar to Stephen King.
Postmodernity illustrates a return to the individual rather than the pre-WWII belief in humanism and collective progress, so it seems fitting that the protagonist of Mouth of Madness would be so reminiscent of a noir hero, a genre focused on self-reliance and isolation (Jancovich 84). Cane believes that the stories he has written are true and that the events will unfold as he describes if people read the book. It is the readers that give the work its meaning, which makes Cane’s readers complicit. The role of the author becomes complex; was it as Cane said, that “they were telling me what to write. Giving me the power to make it all real,” effectively erasing the need for an author? (Mouth of Madness) Outside forces are driving Cane, who eventually is able to control John Trent, the main character. Throughout the film, viewers have to question what parts of the film are “real” and which are related to the novel. The lines of reality and fiction can be blurred due to postmodern intertextuality; “as a result of this fusion (or substitution) of fiction and (for) reality on the part of the viewer, Hollywood has developed a new fad: the tendency of movies to be increasing self-referential, drawing attention to themselves as productions or employing cross-references to other movies” (Pilipp 55-56). The film closes with Trent going to see the film version of the novel he has been forced to set upon the world—he is the star and it is also directed by John Carpenter.
Trent sees his mediated image on the screen, just as audiences watch through their screens. The references that the film makes to the novel and film which take place inside of it force audiences to ask about their own role in the production, and whether they are unwittingly part of a representation of reality.
Intertextuality in Cabin is in many ways more overt, directly referencing monsters and tropes from the horror genre under the guise of business discussions in the corporation headquarters. Hadley and Sitterson are presented as ‘authors,’ yet their characters, and even occasionally the surroundings, elude their control, despite their best efforts. The intended audience within the film is the ancient ones who require sacrifice in the form of performance, much like reality television (Woofter 269). Horror film audiences are put in allegiance with the old gods, as unsympathetic viewers who just want to see gore and death before going on with their lives. Cabin postulates that “the horror genre—caught in its own vacuum of prepackaged, ritualized formula—must self-destruct before it can be ‘reborn’” (Woofter 270). Cabin both celebrates the degeneration of generic formula and critiques it, participates in the generic conventions even as it subverts them. Though most of the meta commentary takes place in the control room by the higher ups, there are times when the college kids realize something is amiss, such as when Marty questions the decision to split up. Because American culture has been so inundated by horror film conventions, it is difficult for an audience to take a traditional horror film seriously and audiences might find characters more appealing and intelligent when they are aware of the situation they are in and the potential absurdity of the plot that surrounds them.
As the previous sections focusing on intertextuality have hinted at, one of the core tenets of postmodern horror is the transgression between reality and fiction, often highlighted through the use of intertextual and self-referential references. Very early in Cabin, it is revealed that there is something monstrous at play, depriving viewers of the gradual reveal. Moments after the characters enter the arena of the cabin, a bird flies into the electrical grid which separates the real world from the virtual, survival-gaming space, which alerts viewers that what hides in these woods (such as a zombie redneck torture family) does not matter.
Instead, pleasure is derived from the voyeurism as we see these characters manipulated and begin to conform into the roles the genre has prescribed for them. “Thus begins a process by which Cabin continually attempts to dislocate both viewer identification and the pleasurable contemplation of attractions by constructing a rather chilly spectatorial position that can derive pleasure solely by looking askance at the proceedings” (Woofter 272). Critics of the film have claimed this apparent distance diminishes the effect of the horror and all the scares are ironic, and therefore safe. But consider that “it is the function of irony in postmodern discourse to posit that critical distance and then undo it,” and Cabin only loses its effect when audiences do not think to reflect the film onto their own lives (Hutcheon 15). This voyeuristic tendency is heightened by “the control-room types behaving how Whedon and Goddard seem to feel horror audiences behave: by ogling the victims’ half-naked bodies, laughing and shouting at their suffering, betting on futile choices they will make, or ignoring them altogether while they go for more beer and chips” (Woofter 276-277).
Some horror is created by reflecting this image onto viewers and reminding them of their role as witnesses to horrific acts which create a mixture of pleasure and unease. The scenes of slaughter themselves are never played for laughs, only becoming humorous when contrasted to the work scenes which remove the viewer from the narrative.
Cabin aligns itself against reality TV, and “draws upon a contemporary discourse that considers visual representation as offering neither infallible access to nor insulation from the real” (Woofter 273). Marty’s skepticism of what is real about the situation reflects the skepticism of reality TV as well as subgenres which utilize observational documentary tactics, such as found footage horror.
Reality is created by the media through which is represented, and the simulacrum replaces the real. If one Hadley and Sitterson are the ‘authors’ of the narrative surrounding Marty, it draws the audience’s attention to the constructed nature of all those genres which we consider more ‘real.’ In terms of the style of the film itself, “in postmodern fiction, too, the documentary impulse of realism meets the problematizing of reference seen earlier in self-reflexive modernism” (Hutcheon 29). ‘Real’ is created through systems of meaning and representation and postmodernism questions what real is and how we come to understand it (Hutcheon 33). In the meta sense, Cabin forces its characters to reconsider what they’ve considered real—especially concerning the premise of the horror genre, which in turn begs viewers to consider the horror films they have seen more closely. The aesthetics of a slasher movie (lack of establishing shots to create confusion, cluttered and dark mise-en-scene, and POV shots from the killer’s perspective) are contrasted with the scenes from the control room, a boundary which is crossed when the monsters are let loose.
When Dana and Marty storm the corporate headquarters, the control room becomes part of the simulation it was trying to control, further confusing the line between reality and representation (Jackson 27).
What the film might lack in traditional jump scares and heightened suspense, it makes up for in commentary on the fabric of our reality and what myths we have either accepted or rejected as truth. “As postmodern man confronts the horror of his own technology turned against him, his survival depends on his ability ‘to realize that the Other is part of the Self,’” and that those that work in the corporate headquarters and even the old gods are just as much a part of humanity as he is (Magistrale 13). The cabin, traditionally considered scary due to its isolation and lack of civilization, instead becomes frightening because it is heavily monitored, the inhabitants manipulated, and the line between reality and representation is trespassed by indifferent overseers. The plan of Hadley and Sitterson only works if the five youths believe they are acting on their own free will—a frightening notion, since most people believe that their choices are always their own.
The transgression between real and fictional is just as striking in Mouth of Madness, though less focused on the end of the horror film genre and more focused on the power of the audience. In the film there is a revolution against humanity itself, and it begs us to “question our own unconscious fears, beliefs and prejudices, not only in terms of the desire that instigates them, but also in terms of the repercussions for society in general” (Belville 17). What is scarier—that Cane’s work is not fiction or that our reality itself is fiction? Just as readers give a book meaning, so does humanity when it chooses to believe in reality. The loss of self (“I’m losing me”) and of perceived free will scares Trent as much as it should frighten viewers (Mouth of Madness). Many “postmodern horror films are about alienation—from oneself, from other people, from the social mainstream, from God Himself” (Magistrale 127). Trent is certainly alienated from other people and the social mainstream, and as the film progresses, from himself and his ability to understand his own mind. Even though it is doubtful Trent was religious, he seemed to buy into the idea that he, along with all other people, were given free will at some people, and thus becomes alienated from God when he realizes he is still being manipulated.
Postmodern horror manages to frighten audiences “by destabilizing the trust we place in our perceptions or by questioning the laws of nature, horror movies move […] towards the potentially nihilistic irrationality favored by Nietzsche, wherein we no longer have solid foundations for understanding the world around us” (Syder 82). Rather than focusing on fears which take place in this reality which audiences accept, postmodern horror focuses on the fear that reality is just another representation. In postmodernism, “to be terrified is to be in a state of hesitation or suspension,” which often related to the unimaginable, just as both the endings of the films deal with the unimaginable. The self is also unimaginable, as Trent discovers (Belville 24 and 28). If the postmodern audience believes that “authority is the problem, it cannot be the solution, and […] this leads to a displacement of the traditional authorities from the role of the hero,” and in fact, places authority into the seat of the villain (Jancovich 85). The protagonists of both films are outside of systems of authority and problems arise when stable foundations declared by authorities begin to falter. Both horror movies do not have narrative closure, ending with hints at apocalypse or simply the knowledge that the evil remains to repeat its original crime (Jancovich 86). Horror films have always played with societal fears, and as those fears have evolved, so too have horror films. While monsters and jump scares may provide temporary fear, it is our deeper fears about our place in the universe and relationship with technology that postmodern horror films play and confront us with.
Works Cited
Belville, Maria. Gothic-postmodernism : Voicing the Terrors of Postmodernity, Editions Rodopi, 2009.
Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism, Routledge, New York, 1989.
Jackson, Kimberly. “Metahorror and Simulation in the Scream Series and The Cabin in the Woods.” Technology, Monstrosity, and Reproduction in Twenty-First Century Horror, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 11-30.
Jancovich, Mark. “Post-Fordism, Postmodernism, and Paranoia.” Horror, B.T. Batsford Ltd, London, 1992, pp. 83-117.
Magistrale, Tony. Abject Terrors: Surveying the Modern and Postmodern Horror Film, International Academic Publishers, 2005.
Pilipp, Frank. “Creative Incest: Cross-and Self-Referencing In Recent Hollywood Cinema.” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1, 1999, pp. 55–64.
Pinedo, Isabel. “Recreational Terror: Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary Horror Film.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 48, no. 1/2, 1996, pp. 17–31.
Syder, Andrew. “Knowing the Rules: Postmodernism and the Horror Film.” The Spectator, vol. 22, no. 2, Fall 2002, pp. 78-88.
Woofter, Kristopher Karl. “Watchers in the Woods: Meta-Horror, Genre Hybridity, and Reality TV Critique in The Cabin in the Woods.” Reading Joss Whedon, edited by Rhonda V. Wilcox, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York, 2014, pp. 268–279.